Harry Potter and the End of the War
by Xavras
Summary: Post DH, not epilogue compliant. The Battle was ended but the war was not over. There are still Death Eaters and Harry won't rest until they are all caught. Things are not as simple as when the Battle of Hogwarts ended. Different friends. More to come...on Hiatus while working on other stories (4-18-2013)


**AN: This is the beginning of a new story. I have more of the story mapped out - not sure how far I will take it. If people find it an iteresting beginning I may work on it after completeing the Dark Lord Potter story. **

**A/N 2: Disclamier: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the stories - just having fun and I make nothing off of this.**

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Harry was angry. He was furious that he had allowed himself to get into such a situation. "Somehow I know that this is Draco's fault," he said to himself. He realized he had to stop cursing his or even Draco's actions as he needed to solve his predicament.

Here he was in a slimy and wet dungeon, exactly where this was he was not sure, as his head was aching and he considered that he may have been forced to travel by apparition or port-key to get to where he was. Hanging against a slimy wall, which was cold and irritating to the scarred bare skin of his back. His wrists were attached by magic dampening manacles to the wall, and the pain of the untold minutes, or was it hours, of being suspended this way was tearing at his muscles and ligaments in his arms and shoulders. He could hardly see through the dim haze of the dungeon that was barely lit by smoking torches; however he could see lying on a small table barely ten feet in front of him was what appeared to be a broken wand. It sure looked like it was made of holly, yet he could not determine the core.

Harry sighed, "Well, that one didn't last too long," he said to himself. Then he proceeded to finish examining his surroundings. Nothing else was in the cell he found himself in. The only sound he could hear besides his labored breathing was an irregular drip of moisture from the walls onto the damp floor. Harry's mind started to wander as he considered various desperate situations he had found himself in the past: in the graveyard facing down Pettigrew and Voldemort at the end of his fourth year, in the Department of Mysteries facing down a dozen death eaters and eventually confronting Voldemort again at the end of his fifth year, watching Dumbledore die at the end of his sixth year, on the run from the Death Eaters throughout what would have been his seventh year at Hogwarts, facing down various remaining death eaters as he helped the Aurors hunt them down over the past several years since the Battle of Hogwarts.

Harry had then started to think about his friends who he would be letting down if he didn't find a way out of this mess. He knew his magic was stronger since he defeated Voldemort after the Horcrux was removed from his scar through his death. He considered that any of his close friends were at risk from the actions of the remaining Death Eaters, for as more and more were rounded up, the ones that were still at large were becoming more and more desperate. And some had eventually started to target his friends, hoping that would slow down the zeal of Harry Potter as he sought to rid the world of any remaining followers of Tom Riddle.

"Focus," he said to himself. Reminiscing and worrying won't get him out of this particular jam. He then started to think about various muggle stories, be it the secret agent James Bond who always had some way out of a fix, whether it be through ingenuity or through special gadgets he obtained from Q; or the American comic book hero Batman who always seemed to have something hidden in his utility belt that would help him escape from any trap set by his arch-villains. All Harry had was his magic, and that was being affected by the manacles.

Enough about fantasy and make-believe, thought Harry, he needed to get himself out of his current situation before whoever had trapped him came back. His options were quite limited. He strained his neck to look up at the magic dampening manacles. He considered what he had learned about these devices during his training to become an Auror. They were designed to prevent a witch or wizard from using their wand or casting wandless magic. They also prevented apparition and the use of port-keys. He didn't even have a port-key, so that wouldn't help. He couldn't even get at his wand in his current situation. There was not enough room around his wrists for him to maneuver his hands to slide out of the manacles. He remembered reading of criminals who would cause their wrists to chafe against their restraints to the point of bleeding and using the blood as a lubricant to help slide their wrists out of the bonds, but this would not work as the manacles were designed to not damage the skin. If he only had a way to make himself smaller or at least his hands smaller, then he might be able to slide out of this trap.

He thought about how various wizards escaped from being captives in the past. He thought about how his godfather would manage to escape. Sirius had been an unregistered animagus, and he had changed into a dog and escaped from Azkaban. But Harry had only begun the rudimentary study of animagus transformation. He concentrated on what he had learned about such changes. He began to meditate on the form he thought his body would take. His concentration was broken briefly as he remembered the chastisement that McGonagall had once given his godfather when she had learned that he had become an animagus with Harry's father and with that traitor Pettigrew back when they were students. There were dangers involved in attempting to make the change on their own, without proper training and preparation. Harry laughed out loud as he considered that thought. When had he ever had adequate training for anything he had faced? No one was going around handing out manuals on how to defeat dark lords, although Harry would probably be the most qualified wizard to write such a manual. After a few moments laughing at the absurdity of his situation, considering writing a manual for defeating dark lords when he was currently imprisoned who knows where by the followers of the one dark lord who he had actually defeated, he realized that to ever get the chance to write such a manual he would have to get out of this situation first. And he would prefer to get out of this situation alive and in one piece. There were several people who were counting on him to do just that and he was sure that if he didn't survive this current ordeal that at least one of this people would come and find him and kill him all over again just to teach him a lesson. Then he thought of a certain red headed witch who would do the same thing just to be able to mock him before killing him again. Both of those scenarios were clearly more unpleasant to think about than even his current predicament. So he set his mind to getting out of the current situation.

He used his occulemency training that he had finally received from his girlfriend to be able to clear his mind from all distractions, including the ones he was giving himself as he let his mind wander earlier. He concentrated on his animagus form – which he assumed would be similar to his patronus charm. He concentrated on the form of a stag, or at least of having the front legs or arms of said stag. The concentration caused quite a headache and he felt a tightness develop in his chest. The tightness increased as he considered briefly that the magic dampening effect of the manacles was fighting against him. He had to pause and put aside all thoughts of how this compared to the various times he was placed under the cruciatus curse by others or how it compared to the mental attacks from Voldemort in the past. Finally he cleared his mind and he steadied himself for the pain he now knew would accompany his attempts. "Pain is fleeting, and chicks dig scars," he thought to himself.

He returned to his concentration on the animagus transformation. The pain in his head and his chest returned but he was able to ignore it. Slowly he began to feel a change. The sensations in his arms were unpleasant but hard to describe. The pain in his right arm suddenly became even more intense. He understood why and quickly cast those that stray thought aside for the moment as he hoped that it would not affect anything he had previously done to his arm. He struggled to keep his concentration again as the pain in his arms increased slightly. His arms felt as they were lengthening and thinning. He looked up and noticed his arms were becoming the fore legs of a stag, and his hands were changing to hooves. He was unsure how to bend these new appendages as he felt the manacles loosen slightly around his wrists. He let his knees buckle underneath him and his body dropped. The manacles began to tighten around his forelegs but as they tried to clamp onto the hooves that had formed, they slipped right off.

The pain of his raw back sliding along the wet but rough stone caused his concentration to slip. He felt the pain in his head and chest relented at the same time he felt the pain as his arms transformed back. He noted he still had the wand holster on his forearm. He hoped that it actually covered the wand that he had hidden under the skin of his forearm. With a quick movement the wand in his arm slid out into his hand. His holly and phoenix feather wand was in perfect shape. He stood up and walked over to the table as he effortlessly hid his wand back inside of his forearm. He looked at the broken wand, or fake wand, that he used to keep in his wand holster. He was glad he decided to use that as a decoy when he made the decision to hide his wand inside his forearm as the comic book character Wolverine had retractable claws in his hands and arms.

Well, the first part of my escape has worked out so far, he thought as he prepared to manage the rest of this escape. And he knew that once he was out of here, wherever here was, that he was going to track down Draco and get even with him for this current set up. His patience with the former Death Eater was running thin at this moment. But first, he had to get out of this cell and this dungeon, and determine who if anyone he could bring back to the Aurors. Dead or alive, he didn't care how he brought them back, but he was growing weary of this continued game.


End file.
